Hidden Mysteries: Notre Dame – Secrets of Paris is a hidden object title that allows players to explore Notre Dame while solving a mystery. The art style is nice and the hidden object aspect is well done, if not terribly challenging. There are several puzzles, none of which offer any sort of impediment to completing the game, since they fall in the easy category. The story is fine, although there are a couple elements that aren’t explained well and the twist, which we didn’t see coming, is a bit far-fetched for what the game was originally set up to be.

The story begins at Notre Dame, as the clergyman who is assigned to walk the rounds discovers that the most valuable treasure the church holds, the Crown of Thorns, has gone missing. He calls in the police and the player steps in as a female detective who is glad to have the cover of night because she has some unorthodox investigative techniques. We suppose this to mean that she sorts through piles of junk strewn about Notre Dame (a very unlikely scenario in itself) to find clues and solve puzzles, since there wasn’t actually anything interesting about her investigation, other than her illegal breaking and entering techniques, which could also be what she meant. The story jumps the shark about halfway in. We’re going along, discovering other missing artifacts and inching closer to finding clues to the burgler when we encounter a ghost. Yup! A ghost. We didn’t see it coming and if you play before you read this, you won’t either. If you read this first, sorry about the spoiler. The story ends up being about the supernatural and a thief whose motive isn’t all that suspect, when you get right down to it.